The present invention relates to clocks and, more particularly, to clocks which display the time in unique and innovative ways.
From nearly the beginning of the civilization, man has been fascinated by time and has created a vast multitude of instruments to keep time and display it.
The early clocks relied on the apparent movement of the sun across the sky to cast a shadow on a sundial. Other early clocks relied on the passage of a fixed amount of water or sand through an opening.
In more recent times, mechanical clocks, driven by weights, springs and/or electrical energy, have been widely used. These mechanical clocks typically feature a clock face which features time demarcations. A number of hands rotatable at different angular velocities about the same axis are mounted over the clock face. One hand rotates so as to indicate the hour, another indicates the minutes while a third might indicate the seconds.
Most recently, these analog clocks have been partially replaced by electronic clocks which feature an electronic digital time display, completely obviating the need for rotating hands.
While there all-electronic digital display clocks are suitable for many purposes, there is considerable feeling that analog clocks, which display the time using a spatial relationship of some type, may be easier to read. There is also a desire to enhance the aesthetic appeal of a timepiece so that the ubiquitous clock becomes nearly an object of art rather than a simple and purely functional instrument.
One approach to the enhancement of the aesthetics of an analog timepiece involves the elimination of the rotating hands. This approach is followed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,858,209 by the present inventor.
There remains a need, and it would be advantageous to have, additional ways of displaying time using a timepiece, or clock, having no rotating hands.